The Blood Runs Crazy
by karaleyn
Summary: A story of how Remus was bitten and the struggle as a child to cope with the beast within. Focuses on Remus and his parents.


The Blood Runs Crazy

_by Ais_

_7/28/06_

Note: I wrote this story years ago and finally decided to put it up on ffn just because I keep losing it. Here are my original notes:

I've always wondered about the story of how Remus was initially bitten so I figured I'd give it a try. As far as I know, we don't know Remus' parents' names, or even which is a Muggle. I'm assuming it's his mom, since his father is the one who offended Greyback. I tried to make this as accurate as possible according to the little info we knew at the time; it may have inaccuracies since I haven't researched the subject in years. I've edited this in the past but there may still be mistakes.

Cry Little Sister by Gerard McMann seems somehow appropriate for this, though certainly not perfect. The Blood Runs Crazy is a line from a Neko Case song (Dirty Knife), which is also appropriate.

This story has no pairings at all; it is simply Remus-centric, contains some violence/blood, and possibly some British swearing.

Remus, the Harry Potter world and all things affiliated, belong to J.K. Rowling and many others who are most definitely not me. I make no money; only entertainment.

In case you're confused, I usually go by Ais. I only went by karaleyn here on ffn. Also, to be upfront: It's doubtful I will write anything else in the HP fandom. Mostly because I'm very involved in an original series now (In the Company of Shadows).

* * *

"Remus. Remus, wake up. Please, just... open your eyes. I'll... A treat, would you like-- I've some chocolate..."

It seemed abnormally dark behind his eyelids, a complete lack of light; as if his mind was so overwhelmed that it could not even bother to paint the blackness correctly. He could not understand anything – his ears were buzzing, his body felt five steps away and covered in suffocating cotton.

And, for some reason, his mother's voice was strained with a tremor, the way it had been when Aunt Anne had died the year before and she'd had to give a speech at the funeral. _She was a beautiful woman, _Mother had said, _inside and out, _and though she was smiling, Remus could feel the tears behind her voice. _We cannot ever predict such tragedies as this but we can only hope she lives on in our hearts..._

Remus knew his mother did not entirely believe her own speech – he had overheard her later, safe behind a door and the knowledge that children like Remus would not understand, telling his father that Anne was dead, simply dead, and she did not live on anywhere except in the bodies of the maggots. Her voice was shrill, desperate, the ever-present calm smile gone as if it had never existed. At the time, Remus had felt desperate himself, as if the world were tilting and everything were falling away around him. His mother was always so calm, so kind, that he could not have imagined her being anything else. Hearing her voice, strained to the edge trying to hold in tears, he had wanted to cry himself and had stumbled away before he could hear his father properly comfort her.

Distantly, behind the pitch-black darkness and the confused signals his body was sending him, Remus wondered if his mother had another sister she had not told him of and if she had died as well. For Mother had that tone again, the voice of, _Someone has just died but I will smile anyway, I will comfort you, I will tell you I understand and even if I won't, you'll believe I do, _and chocolate was too far a luxury in their house for him to be offered it at random.

"Remus... Remus, honey, _please. _Please, you have to wake up now. Please.."

Even with the tears gathering in her voice, thickening it and pulling it deeper like she was caught underwater and everything was blurred, Remus could not force himself to rise high enough to consciousness to reply. He felt caught in his own sea, tugged deeper and deeper, the buzzing increasing until he could hear and see white noise, but still understand snippets around him.

He thought he vaguely felt a weight somewhere on his body but he could not in the confusion identify where. He knew his body was there, knew it existed, but he could no more say, _This is my foot, and this is where my left arm is, _than he could count the number of stars in the sky through closed eyes.

A scrape, like the rings of their shower curtain being slid back in the mornings, the soft scritch of metal on metal that somehow always comforted Remus. It made him think of his mother hanging laundry to dry in the bathtub, lines strewn between the rod and the wall, sometimes magical but usually just tied to little hooks she had installed years ago. Her humming under her breath and the swish of her skirts about her knees, the soft padding of her feet on worn, creaking floors.

New voices slid in around him, honey into tea, swirling and dispersing just the same.

"Mrs. Lupin, please, your child is still sick..."

"He needs to rest right now. For a child, his body is still traumatized — "

"He's lost a lot of blood — "

"Then, for God's sake, give him a transfusion!" His mother's voice was abrupt and shrill, sounding frayed at the edges like Remus' favorite jumper they'd had to throw away just three days earlier. A russet brown, faded to near grey from overuse, worn straight through in so many places it may as well have been crocheted, and the sleeve had come apart. Little holes at the cuffs where Jumper tugged playfully at Remus, trying to play, vying for attention.

Jumper was a stray, really, not their dog; Remus had found him down the street, half-covered in garbage with eyes deep brown and soulful. He was too weak to properly even bark, but Remus carefully scooped him up – let himself be growled at and bitten and even if he was bleeding a little by the end, that was all right – and brought him home, named him Jumper because he'd almost jumped out of his arms so many times that Remus had almost dropped him, and because he was obsessed with Remus' jumper. He must have looked quite the sight, worn brown jumper dirty from the scruffy puppy squirming in his arms, hands bleeding and hair completely disheveled, but he was grinning, grinning, eyes bright and vibrant and when his mother opened the door, she had only stared at him a moment before turning away with a smile and readying a bowl for the dog.

Remus had realized (somewhere between Jumper clawing his way out of the tub like a particularly ugly wet rat, clinging painfully and trustingly to Remus when he could reach him, and Jumper turning three and a half times in a circle that night, little legs stomping all over Remus' before he curled up by his knees and twitched and snuffed his way through dreams until morning) that he was rather fond of dogs.

It was that again, perhaps it had something to Jumper, or was it? Because Remus could not think for a moment how long ago it had been when he'd found Jumper, how much time had passed between the soulful eyes and now... His mind was an unbalanced mobile, tilting and whirling here, pausing gracefully there to hover, a hummingbird, before gently upending again.

"A.. transfuming?" One of the unknown voices, and for a moment, Remus could not comprehend who it was, why they were speaking, what they even meant. Time passed in crawls and leaps, tumbling down the hill here, laughing and sprawling and spreading wildly across the countryside, and here it was caught in the woods, cautious and distinct and taking great care in where it placed its foot.

"A transfusion! If he needs blood, give him it! Take mine, take all of it – just – Just-- _Why _aren't you helping him? My little boy! He needs help and you're just _standing there, _staring, he's behind this curtain like you're too ashamed -- why won't anyone _help him?" _

It was his mother's voice but Remus knew he was dreaming because she had never sounded like that before. Sobbing and furious and terrified, and maybe it was a doppelganger because Remus had read a story about them once when he was supposed to be asleep.

Other children, in the stories he had read and the few he knew in the countryside around them – they got in trouble for traipsing through the woods on their own, or breaking the cookie jar when they tried to nick some late night snacks. Remus got in trouble for staying up late reading, sounding out words by himself beneath the light of a flashlight, because he was too small to use a wand properly and his father, smiling even as he was, still refused to give him one until he was much older. It was just as well, for then Remus would have spent all his time trying to learn spells from the books scattered about his father's library, when he was still trying to sound out long words with silent e's and too many g's and h's.

"We're helping him, Mrs. Lupin, we are – but you must understand – a delicate situation — "

"The night is almost past but it's still a full moon out there — "

His mother only cried louder, the dream-mother, really, because Remus knew that much now, but he thought it was strange for her to cry. It was true that it was a full moon, Remus was certain of that much even though he could not place why he knew. It was rather like having a body, vaguely feeling it was there, but not being able to connect the details. Things like, _It's a full moon, _and, _Something has happened, _and, _I couldn't eat chocolate anyway right now, I'd be sick, _were all very true, but he could not understand how, or why, or what else he knew.

"But he's _still bleeding!" _And it wasn't a shout, particularly, or even a scream or yell. It was the raised voice of a terrified mother and Remus felt his heart compress painfully for a moment in sympathy. She was so upset; her tears bypassing even her voice now to just permeate the atmosphere instead, and even Remus, with a body but not, could feel how heavy the air was around them.

There was a jumble of voices, cautionary protests and comfort and all Remus really heard was something about, _Slowed healing, _and, _It will be alright, _and, _Learn to cope, _and he thought they were doing a rather poor job when his mother only let out a loud sob and somewhere weight increased on his body.

A mess of moments, so full of noise they were silent, and he started to drift away from the voices to rest, suspended, in the time that was not time within him. He had glimpses of a dream – the full moon seeming viciously bright above the trees and the whimper of a dog in the dark, and his heart pounding violently within his chest even though he could not fathom why – and then there was the shower-curtain-scrape again, the measured _thump, thump, _of steps approaching and the scuff of what sounded like a chair being dragged across the ground. Even with his eyes closed, Remus could feel the presence of his father, weariness and a tired smile, the lingering scent of a cigar enjoyed out back, lined eyes and hair speckled with grey, and hands so gentle they were like care made tangible and warm.

"I've just finished giving my report," he said softly, his voice so low and weary it was as if all the negative emotions of the world had come to perch on his shoulders all at once.

Silence, and Remus found himself able to think a bit more clearly. If he concentrated hard enough, he thought he could understand _this _to be his foot, and _this _to be his hand, and right _here _was where the sheets were moving gently, _up, down, up, down, _against his chest as he breathed. He did not know yet where he was, and it was still too much energy to think of opening his eyes, but as his body came more into focus, so too did his eyes. The darkness was giving way to pale shadow, and he could tell there was a light somewhere above his eyes, distant and just off-center, and eventually he would be able to see the subdued red of that brightness shining through the skin of his eyelids.

"He doesn't want chocolate. He's going to _die." _His mother's voice was hoarse and lower, if possible, than his father's, and Remus felt certain his father would laugh at the absurdity of the statement, but he didn't.

"He won't die," his father said, sounding as certain as he was uncertain, precariously balanced while he tried to make a decision with the facts before him. It was the same tone he used when explaining some new opinion he had overheard and what his current stance was while he still gathered information. He was a firm believer in reserving judgment for a situation until he could understand the context and while sometimes it made him seem a sedate, old-fashioned turtle, it also made his eventual opinion far fairer than those too quick to judge.

"I wish he _would," _his mother said suddenly, her voice high and vicious and choked with tears and Remus felt himself jerk a little more awake at the words. He did not know positively who they spoke of, but surely it was him, and did his mother really--?

"You don't mean that," his father said quietly.

"I do! From what they've said – this horrible illness – all he'll need to _cope _with," and at the word 'cope' she sneered with terror and anger and hopelessness.

"You don't," his father repeated, more firmly and a little louder. "Honey, you're just stressed — "

"_Stressed?" _ His mother sounded incredulous, anguished and insane, her voice rising significantly despite the quiet, _Shh, Darling, shh, _from his father."My son, lying there bandaged and branded for life for some _God awful _reason that probably has _nothing_ to do with him_, _bleeding right through those damned wraps, looking like death warmed over – and he hasn't opened his eyes, not since – not since – and, I swear to God, his heart stopped beating, it wasn't even _beating _when I reached him and – My son, _dying, _and you call – you _dare – _ _Stressed?!" _

The scraping of chairs, the scuffling of bodies yanking against each other and a sudden weight tipping the bed (bed, he was on a bed, he was certain now, though what else would he have been on?, and it _was _a sheet lying on him, and his right hand was brushing against something warm and heavy that was shuddering – his mother, he knew, he could feel the texture of her dress and that scratchy old cardigan she always wore), and her loud sobbing was suddenly muffled by something as his father whispered over and over words that were untrue but needed to be said anyway. _ It's alright, _and, _We'll figure it out, _and, _As long as we have each other, all of us together, we'll be fine, _and, _He's strong, you know he is, he'll get through this – we all will. _

She shifted, her cardigan dragged across Remus' fingers and pressed his hand into the bed and it was as if his body had been waiting for that sign to drag him back to life. He gasped suddenly, like a drowned man starved for air, surfacing to the bright day full of giddiness and lingering fear and opened his eyes before he could think.

Light too bright against the darkness from before and he felt blinded, disoriented and blinded and his body still seemed a step too far away, and he closed his eyes immediately before the over-stimulation could kill him –- for surely it would, he could die from it, it was painful and confusing and too much at once.

He heard his mother and father, both loud and sudden and reaching for him at once – words tumbling over each other, chimes tangling against each other in the wind, making more noise than they could alone but together not a single clear note could be understood. His hand was crushed again, this time in his mother's grip and he could feel a palm against his forehead – familiar and careful and the perfect weight, it was his father's, that rested on his head and ruffled his hair when he said something particularly clever or mature – and he was fever-hot or his father was, because one of them felt cold-but-hot and Remus could not understand who it was.

The dueling chimes fell into discord, became their own melodies, and Remus finally understood what they were saying.

"Remus, oh, thank God – "

"How are you feeling? You're so hot –"

"I'll call the nurses – Healers – whatever they're called, I'll get them – "

"Can you hear me? Remus? Can you answer me..?"

"Mum," he said, his voice hoarse from disuse (or was it screaming?, because – frantic clips of a dream, it had to be a dream, of something looming suddenly and terror and agony and the stars suddenly tipping up, strangely, into view above him, and he was staring and screaming, or screaming and staring, and it was hard to tell which came first but surely they were intertwined), and then, "Dad."

His mother was crying again but Remus hoped it was from relief this time, for he felt far too world-weary and grey-dead to be able to deal with it being the terror from before, and his father's hand upon his forehead was trembling just so.

"Remus," his father said, and in that one word was all the relief and terror and pain he had been holding tightly inside. His hand rested more heavily on his forehead, drifted down his cheek and rested for a moment, trembling lightly again, on his shoulder in a light hold, as if to say, _You're here, _and, _I'm here, _and, _I've got you, I won't let you go. _ But he said nothing else and Remus' mother was crying too hard for coherency and Remus felt relieved even though, somehow, he felt like crying.

Tears down the cheek, hot and meandering ticklish patterns down to his ears where they fell into his hair and eventually warmed the pillow near his head and he couldn't stop them, those silent tears, even though he didn't know why they were there. The ceiling bright and sterile above him, the slightest of cracks here and there, a light off-center like he vaguely remembered thinking, and he knew, when he saw they were lanterns, that it was St. Mungo's he was lying in, and that something terrible must have happened for his parents to bring him there.

It was too expensive, too far away, and he was accustomed to Muggle doctors as much as he was Healers, for his mother felt just as comfortable around them as she did anyone else, and when she felt too overwhelmed she reverted to her non-magical childhood thinking. Doctors and nurses and homeopathy, but they were here, St. Mungo's, and something about the ceiling that he would later come to memorize made him cry even harder.

The trembling hand tightened, a careful hold as if Remus were delicate glass to be treasured as well as protected, and when his mother could speak, for moments at a time, all she could say was, _Remus, _ and, _my God, _and, _thank God, _and, _oh God._

She did not often get so far from calm bemusement to invoke God at all and hearing it at once and so often was almost overwhelming. Remus closed his eyes, wondered briefly, _Why does my side and shoulder hurt?, _and, _It still feels too hot in here, _and somewhere in the confusion he found himself asleep.

---

Days stretched long and endless before him, repetitive and uncertain, and even with his mother hovering around him like a particularly protective and vicious bird, hawk-eyeing all those who approached and silently weighing the danger they presented to her young – even with his father here and gone like a comforting, heavy weight, a blanket that warmed as much as it muffled and concealed, his eyes pained like they never had been before when he watched Remus, sometimes looked away as if staring at his son was too much for him to handle, after which he always stood abruptly and said something about _fresh air _and _cigar _and _back in a mo _and he was gone for hours, always returning with eyes a little redder and shoulders hunched a little more – even with it all, Remus found himself with far too much time to think.

To remember.

They stumbled their way around the topic, careful words and the occasional tumble of information, like an awkward dancer drifting across the dance floor, and Remus actually found himself gleaning more information from when they stepped on the other side of the curtain drawn around his bed, voices hushed and fervid and falling out in a rush. Words like, _werewolf, _and, _bitten, _and, _I can't believe, _and it took a good two days for the full horror of the situation to fully sink into Remus' mind.

_Werewolf._

He knew what they were, of course, but it had always been a distant understanding – the stylized drawing in a book here or there, the occasional hushed whisper of grinning fear amongst the kids who lived a few miles away and he saw only once in a great while, the legends and myths that wound their way down to even the smallest and most remote of children, of silver and fangs and the weight of the full moon.

He knew what they were, but it had never been anything important. Something to laugh at with the other kids when he could, to join in their conversations, to feel included when they whispered in an excited hush about tramping through the woods at night to challenge the monsters of their fears. No one took it seriously, any of it, because werewolves were like so many legends – a person knew they were there, probably, but who cared when they were so far away?

Who cared when they were just another fantasy, just another remote nightmare?

Remus could not, for the longest time, equate _werewolf _with _myself, _let alone think anything concrete and terrifying such as, _I am a werewolf now, _and, _I need to fear the full moon._

Staring at the ceiling, drifting between dark and light in a shocked, distant sort of way – he could not think clearly, could not grasp the situation, and sometimes he found himself just staring blankly at his mother when she tried to read him a story, or not answering his father when he bracingly spoke of when he would get out of St. Mungo's, because he was doing better now, wasn't he?, and his body was healing well and it would be fine, don't worry, it would be fine. The world was a weight crushing him slowly, the feeling of a heavy blanket stretched over him, and water slowly, gently filling buckets on either side, dragging the blanket down tighter, tighter, so very gently cutting off all his breath and suffocating him from the outside in, or was it inside out?, and he didn't want to think of it anyway.

When he closed his eyes, it was dreams, and then the dreams were nightmares, and then the nightmares were truths.

He could remember it now, the night it all changed, and he could not understand how he had forgotten, or how it could be anything but a vividly realistic memory scoured into his eyelids. Every time he closed his eyes at night, every time he stared at the ceiling, he could see it – a magical picture caught in the same motions forever, or those Muggle movies on the reel, caught in one loop, repeating the same few minutes as if nothing that happened before or after in his life would ever matter as much as that night.

His jumper had been thrown out just last week. His favorite jumper, worn and practically more holes than cloth, full of so many memories – his mother had thrown it out and he understood why, truly he did, and he had agreed at the time, he did, it's just that he found it difficult to sleep that night, and his jumper was warm and familiar and he could not stop thinking of it. He had paced his room, fretful and frustrated, finally looking out the window while he tried to distract himself.

Out by the woods, he saw a glint of something – swift and dark but beautiful, and he swore it was full of fur. He thought of Jumper suddenly, who was far too small to have been what he glimpsed, but he had disappeared only last month, suddenly and with no warning, and surely that could be him returning –-

Remus was down the steps and at the back door before he had even registered his idea to move. His father was in the kitchen, a cigar between his lips even though he did not dare light it within the house (it only took three stern looks from his mother to deter that ever again, although Remus was certain somewhere in there had been a Talking To as well), parchment spread before him like a pirate captain pouring over his treasure maps. He had barely glanced up when Remus passed by, said something in idle amusement like, _Can't sleep?, _or, _Put some shoes on, at least, or your mother'll have my head, _and Remus had said something equally inane back.

His mother was awake, too, of course they were, for Remus was still small and had an early bedtime, even if they let him ignore it sometimes because he was such a good child.

"I saw Jumper," Remus said calmly as he pulled his shoes on carefully, the ties loose enough for him to slip them on because he still had troubles tying them properly but his mother did not like him running around, risking damage to himself or the house if he tripped over the loose ties.

His father glanced over, drew a breath in through the cigar as if it would do anything, and paused a moment before speaking, as if wondering what to say. "Remus," he said finally, carefully, "It's been a month – "

"Yes, but I still –"

"He was a stray before we had him, Remus. He knows how to live on his own – probably is having the time of his life in a bin somewhere far from here –"

"I saw him," Remus said again, very certain and solemn, and stood up to tap his feet clumsily into his shoes. "I'm going to check."

His father waited a moment, watched his son carefully, then smiled slightly – weary, it was, and the light of it did not reach his eyes, but it was sincere nonetheless – and scooted his chair just enough to see out the back window better.

"Stay in sight," he said instead, an idle comment because he knew Remus would, but also knew his son well enough to realize that, as good a child as he was, he still could be headstrong and mischievous when least expected.

Remus smiled, the expression too understanding and mature for someone so young, really, but still childlike in its unfettered brightness. "I will."

The sky was nearly empty of clouds when he stepped outside, and after his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he could see that the stars were more than making up for their lack. The Milky Way was a brilliant strip of cluttered white across the sky and he swore he could almost see some planets winking dimly at him from afar. He had tried to read one of the A-stro-nami books his father had and it said the stars were planets, big giant balls of light and air and things Remus could not understand, but they were huge and they winked at him through the sky, and that was what they were doing that night.

The moon was full, hovering above the tree-line at this angle, a ring of the palest light seeming to surround it like the subdued equivalent of the sun. He raised a hand to his eyes, as if to shield himself from the moonlight, which was bright and vivid and an entity of its own, and squinted into the sky. It was quite the most beautiful night he ever remembered seeing, the wind a gentle caress against his nightclothes, tilting his hair softly across his eyes, warming his cheeks with the subtlest touch, and the chirrups of the night animals and insects singing out their presence to the world.

Movement caught his eye against the edge of the trees, a deliberate strut of an animal, and Remus thought he heard something doglike in the lowest whisper of sound he could hear. He turned toward it, heard a louder whimper a little further back, and immediately headed for the forest. It was Jumper, or another stray, another dog too tired or weak from life to continue on, and Remus could not pass by the sight of a weary thump of a tail, or the vulnerable cocking of a head.

A glint off something white, and it should have been his first clue to stop, for the hair on his arms was raising, something instinctive inside him was saying to _run, don't look back, call for Dad, get inside and lock the door and don't stray too near a window, _but he ignored it because this was just a dog. It was just like Jumper biting his hand by the bin at first but later, when he got to know him, licking Remus' face in great slobbery doggy kisses, tail a blur that moved his entire rear end back and forth, and the little muffled growls when the ends of his jumper were caught in his teeth and he was tugging, tugging, sliding across the floor but still feeling intimidating even at just nigh ten pounds large.

The flash of fur in the distance and despite his promise to his father, Remus found himself straying into the forest in pursuit – half-heard whimpers preceded him and he wondered, amidst the confused fear coating his veins with ice and the startled speeding of his heart, if the dog was hurt, stumbling away, afraid of him.

"Don't be afraid," Remus called and suddenly found himself in the small clearing just barely in view of his house. He heard his father distantly calling through the half-open window for Remus to get back in sight but he ignored him when he finally could see what he had been chasing.

It was a dog, another stray, large and dark and bleeding heavily as it stumbled away. It saw Remus burst into the open and turned warily, one paw held up as it hopped around to face him, teeth bared warningly with a low growl echoing through the clearing around them. Remus slowed, raised his hands non-threateningly, fingers curled and facing the sky as he had learned to do with strays-- for if he held them palm down they may think he was reaching to grab or hit, but palm up was unthreatening and may contain food-- and he slowly sank to his knees.

"It's alright, little dog," Remus said softly, trying to place all the soothing comfort he could into the words, trying to appear as innocuous as possible. He could tell the dog was seriously injured and would die if he tried to run away, and though Remus could not help wondering what could possibly have attacked it to have caused such large wounds, he did not stop to think about it too closely.

The dog growled, ears flattened and tail low, and bared its teeth even more, gums showing above jagged white teeth. But Remus did not move and the dog did not attack, and after a few moments (with the echoing of his father's slowly-growing-irritated voice telling Remus to get back inside already), it seemed that maybe something would come of it. The dog was starting to realize Remus was not, at least, immediately threatening, and Remus was already trying to decide on a name.

The dog watched him warily, slowly dropped its sneer a bit as it sniffed the air questioningly in Remus' direction, let its ears start to perk up in wary curiosity when Remus discovered happily that he had squirreled away a small biscuit the night before in the pocket of his pajamas, and, crumbled and full of lint though it may be, it was still a good offering for a wary stray. He very slowly and carefully pulled out the bit of biscuit, held it calmly in his hand and leaned forward enough to set it on the ground as far from him as he could, then shuffled back a little to give the dog more room.

The dog watched him closely, looking down at the biscuit longingly, and after a few moments decided that its hunger outweighed its fear and stumbled its way forward to hungrily snatch the morsel from the leaves. It looked up at Remus again, very vaguely wagging its tail in a hopeful manner, and perked its ears forward slightly as if questioning more food.

Remus laughed softly, said affectionately, "If you follow me I can get you lots more," and leaned forward to cautiously pat the dog's head.

The stray tensed suddenly, teeth bared and growl ferocious and fearful, and at first Remus thought he was about to be attacked before he realized the dog was not looking at him, but to his right. He glanced over automatically too, the part within him from before screaming sudden terrified, jumbled messages to _run _and _flee _and _never look back, _and then there was the screaming howl of the dog and blood spraying over Remus' startled face.

It was too fast to understand, the crunching of bones and the strangled death cry of the stray, and blood that was hot and terrifying and shocking and nearly dripping into Remus' eyes and staining his lips, and Remus stumbled to a stand just as he realized what had happened.

Another dog appeared – it was a dog, but it wasn't, and feverishly Remus realized it was actually a wolf, had to be, huge and violent and ripping away giant chunks of meat from the stray as the breath was still gurgling from its lungs, and Remus stumbled away with a whispered, "No," that he barely realized he said.

The wolf turned to him, eyes wild and too intelligent and focused on him to such a degree that Remus felt it was looking right through him, and when its mouth lolled open it was somehow malicious, _knowing, _the grin of a human who just won a bet at someone else's expense.

Remus stumbled back, hit a tree with his back, could not look away from those eyes that glinted at him from the moonlight pouring into the trees, and he could barely even hear his father as he called more urgently words he could not process, of, _Remus, _and, _What--? _

A strangled yelp left Remus' throat, like the one the stray had managed before it became so much meat between those bloody teeth of the wolf, and the staccato of his heartbeat and the blood rushing through his veins suddenly tripped his mind into motion.

_Run, _he thought to himself, and he could finally listen.

He turned, almost fell, let out a terrified yell and sprinted back toward the pale light he could just see of his house through the trees. He had played in this area so often, should have been able to navigate it with his eyes closed and mind dizzy from spinning, but in his terror he could barely think to dodge the trees. He tripped, almost fell, _did _fall, scrambled to his feet – fingers scraping into the dirt and knees still jarring from the impact – and he burst into the backyard of his house within seconds. He could see his house looming closer, his father already moving toward the window from the table, his mother appearing at the door with a confused expression that was turning to alarm as she noted the blood, and his heart skipped a beat or two in relief as he realized he would be safe.

He didn't even hear the wolf's paws against the grass but he could see the shock and fear on his parents' faces as they looked over his shoulder and both shouted warnings that were too little, too late.

The first bite caught his robes, so abrupt that it caught Remus off-balance and he started to fall backwards toward the wolf without anything to stop him. His mother, somewhere distant to the moment, was screaming and unable to get the door open in her fear and his father was yelling something with even more alarm than her.

But for Remus, it was the harshness of his breath filling his ears, the roaring of his blood, the feel of that gentle wind passing through his hair as he fell backwards, endlessly backwards, and the low, contented growling of a wolf far too close to his ear.

The second bite, the one that condemned him, was along his lower ribs and upper stomach, a deep, penetrating stab of agony as the wolf clamped its powerful teeth into his body and shook its head, sending him sprawling to the ground with an agonized yell.

The third bite was accompanied with huge paws as heavy as the Earth, landing on his chest and shoving him against the grass so violently that his head snapped back and slammed into the ground. Claws dug into his skin, one he could swear was scraping against bone, and there were teeth digging into his shoulder, snapping his collarbone, yanking up as if to tear him to pieces right there.

Something bright and violent shot toward the wolf, a spell that his father bellowed, words Remus could not understand beneath the jumbled screaming of _pain _and _blood _and _terror _and _confusion _that had become his world, and the wolf only dug its claws in and crouched, ears flattened threateningly back, growling lowly and frighteningly at the house.

More spells, chaotic and off-kilter in Remus' father's terror and fear of hitting his son, and the wolf crouched over Remus like it was defending its kill, its food, its meat. The fear and shock that had kept Remus still was now swept away with the intense need to _get away _and _find Dad _and _be safe, _and he tried to push the wolf off with a weak shove. The wolf looked down at him suddenly, eyes knowing and wild and too intelligent and Remus swore that it grinned at him briefly, satisfied and vicious and pointed.

Remus' father was nearly to them now, the distance seeming far too small for the time it took him but just before he arrived, the wolf tugged once more at his stomach, vicious and pleased and Remus swore he could feel every single tooth penetrating its way through his skin, into the muscle, and he could feel the blood that welled up like water in its wake.

A light that streamed over his eyes, a spell far closer than the others now, and the wolf was suddenly gone as quickly as it had come. Remus felt himself breathing too quickly, blood pouring, it seemed, from every single pore in his body and his eyes were wide and staring, staring, at the moon overhead – he could not look away, it was drawing him in, dark and twisted and terrifying now, somehow, even though before it had been so beautiful – and he could not make himself move, even when his father dropped briefly at his side, staring at him and looking up, likely at the woods, expression grim and furious and terrified all at once, and Remus wanted to tell him it was alright but he could find no words.

He was gone, then, some words thrown over his shoulder, and Remus could swear his heart stopped beating in fear of being left alone, or maybe it was just that there seemed no point to rush all this blood around his body if it was just going to soak into the ground anyway. The leaves were going to look prematurely red, Remus thought distantly, like Autumn had come and taken hold just in this place, just here, where Remus lay dying.

His mother was there suddenly, face obscuring the moon, and he wanted to smile and thank her but he couldn't, he couldn't, because breath was too hard to find and sight was too weary for clarity, and he was pretty certain his heart had forgotten to keep beating.

He did not black out so much as slide into nothingness, but the pain lingered long after consciousness had fled. A furious agony at his shoulder, the cracking of muscle and ribs at his sides, and the dirty feeling of claws digging slowly, slowly, into his skin, teeth sinking slowly, slowly, into his body, without him having a say, without him being able to stop it at all...

He had no control over it. He could not stop it.

The teeth were there, in his nightmares that did not fully wake even in sleep, but remained a dormant, vague terror in the background, hinting at memory more than revealing it, showing flashes of _moonlight _and _trees blurring _and _something warm spraying out before him, arcing, arcing, to fall against his face. _

He could not think, which was just as well, because if he could he would have thought, _The stray died after all._

---

"I think we'll teach you from home," his mother said with the smile that was always so brittle these days. She reached out as if to ruffle his hair but her hand stopped an inch from him, hovered there uncertainly a moment before she turned the movement into pulling the door shut behind him. She turned so he would not see the glint in her eyes, but he did. He knew unshed tears when he saw them, because that was all she showed anymore.

He followed her as she wandered into the house, her worn dress making the familiar rustle against her legs even if Remus could not find the same comfort in it as he had before.

They stopped in the kitchen, for it was the only place in the house with a decent amount of room and a table large enough, but when Remus accidentally glanced past the window facing the backyard he tensed unconsciously, felt himself freeze with a mixture of fear and apprehension, and the movement drew attention to his still-twinging collarbone.

He drew in his breath sharply, tried to disguise it as a sudden yawn, but his mother's sharp look toward the window proved she was not fooled. She smiled at him, a bit uncertainly, a bit tremulously, but her steps were calm and measured as she approached the window and drew the shades shut with a firm tug.

"It's a bit bright out," she said blithely, but Remus was not fooled.

He sat at the table, stared down at the wood and tried to ignore the pain he could still feel in his body at each of the places he was bitten – _bitten by a werewolf, a werewolf, a Dark Creature, a being of malevolence and bloodthirst, a lolling, blood-filled grin and eyes too intelligent in such a bestial face – _and found himself breathing a little too harshly, his heart beating far too quickly for something so simple as resting in a chair.

"Mum—" he said suddenly, his voice brittle like her smile, scared like his father's face that night as he stared through the window at his son being mauled, and she was at his side instantly.

"Remus, Remus, it's alright, shh," she said softly, hands running down his hair comfortingly, but she did not pull him into a hug like she would have any other time and it was that alone that hit Remus so hard that he started crying.

It started with tears, but became great gasps of air that was as painful burning through his lungs as it was rushing out, and then he couldn't see or breathe properly and his nose was stuffed and face felt hot and he was hyperventilating, he was crouched forward, fetal and feeble and trying to scream but the voice would not come out, was caught inside from terror of the wolf, would always be kept in a dark box inside him where it cowered from the light, the moon, the glint off feral teeth and the smile of a Creature gone Dark.

He was completely unaware of his surroundings for several long, terrified moments – he did not know anything but his pain, physical and mental, the scars inside and out that pulsed with every beat of his heart, his damned heart that now forevermore carried blood poisoned by the bite of a wolf, a wolf, a werewolf, a being of death and pain and fetid breath against his cheek, claws digging in and the violation of teeth slipping through his skin.

Remus came back slowly, with facts filtering their way single file into his brain. _My throat hurts, _and, _The chair is uncomfortable, _and, _Mum is crying, _and, _She is hugging me. _ He realized, slowly, that he was clinging to her, position awkward and strained but he could not stop himself, and even though she was crying she still murmured words of love as she rocked him back and forth, back and forth, arms held protectively around him as if to shield him from the moment, his past, his future.

_I wish he'd died, _Remus thought suddenly, the words she had spoken before, and for a moment he could understand what she meant. If he had died they would not have had this... clinging to each other while sobbing, because it was too much, too much, and now the curtains had to stay closed because outside was grass, was trees, was prematurely-red leaves and the rotting corpse of a dead dog out in the clearing.

Remus cried harder suddenly, thinking of the stray and its strangled yelp and the tilting of its hopeful tail just moments before it died, and he was thankful that Jumper had not been there, would not have been able to handle seeing Jumper's death instead if an unknown animal's death was so painful, and again he could not breathe for great lengths of time.

The day passed slowly, agonizingly, and when Remus finally stopped it was only because he had cried himself to sleep from weariness and pain, from an adrenaline crash and from the slowly suffocating knowledge that nothing would ever be the same again.

---

It took him two weeks, but he was finally able to look out the back window without cowering away as if it were to bite him.

He forced himself to one morning, when the birds could be heard chirping annoyingly cheerfully even through the locked window, and the sun was burning its way through the cloth. His mother was in the other room but she kept him in sight, probably always would now that she saw what could happen when he wasn't, and she twitched warningly when he approached the wall.

"Remus—" she started, but did not finish the sentence for she had no right to stop him.

He looked at her, eyes far too mature now for a child – before, they had been intelligent, had been more mature than most children his age, but now they were world-weary and wary, distrustful and withdrawn in a way they never had been before. He looked at her, just looked, and she let her arm drop to her side uselessly, just watched him with a sad, resigned expression, and tensed to throw herself to him for protection or comfort if he needed it.

He turned to the window, stared at it for several long moments as he steeled himself, and, gathering the courage he had been slowly assembling over the past several days, suddenly threw the curtains open. He cringed -- couldn't help it, really, with the light so suddenly bright and the fear of what he would see clawing its way ominously from his gut – and his mother jumped from her chair to rush toward him.

But Remus did not run away or make a sound; he simply forced himself to look outside, at the innocuous scene that greeted him of a typical afternoon with the sun shining on the waving trees and the sky half-heartedly filled with lazy white clouds.

He kept one hand on the curtain and nodded, forcefully because he needed to put a lot of effort into it to move such a stiff neck and tense shoulders, and said with measured calm, "Alright."

His mother stopped, stared at him for a long moment from the other side of the kitchen, and suddenly turned away with one arm across her stomach and the other hand covering her mouth to stifle whatever sound tried to issue forth. And if Remus' heart was beating far too fast, if he was sweating from something altogether different than the hot sun shining through the window, if he felt something terrified and uncertain and just _scared _that hovered like an injured butterfly just beneath his skin, fluttering through his stomach and causing his entire body to feel jittery and unsure – well, it meant nothing, because he could see his expression in the window, and it was calm enough, and his hands were not shaking on the curtain, and his voice was even.

"Alright," he said again, and with great care and dignity, he turned his back on the window and walked calmly to his room, where he collapsed shakily against the other side of the door and slid to the floor. His hands were trembling so violently that when he pressed them against his head, he was distantly certain that he was going to yank all his hair out, and he could not seem to make himself blink often enough because he kept finding his eyes burning and watering – he was staring, staring, eyes wide and unseeing and full of things that did not exist in that room, and he was staring, staring and shivering.

His mother left him alone for the first time that night, let him just stay in his room where he battled with his terror of being alone, tried to tell himself that his clothes hanging in the closet was nothing like the trees in the forest, and that the glints he kept seeing right outside the window were _not_ the teeth of the wolf coming back to finish him, to rend flesh from bone so his blood would spray hot and chaotic against the wall, his bed, his mother or father stepping into the room, his clothes, his books, his books, his books. It would spread between the pages, a crimson blight, and soak into the words that were written by other hands and other minds, sometimes very long ago.

It would be a story of the stars and planets and _'my blood' _and it would spread into pictures that told a story too hard to tell in words. It would be _werewolf blood _and _Remus blood _combined, and maybe in the light of the full moon it would change, morph and transform and distort, until it was a lolling, bloody grin peeking out from between the pages.

Sleep was slow in coming that night and when it arrived it was staccato-bursts of panicked eyes staring at the darkened ceiling and heart too fast for comfort, and dreams of _running_ and _falling_ and _blood_ that scattered beautifully and spelled the word _werewolf _across every wall.

---

"I've put in the heaviest reinforcements I could," his father said bracingly, standing just outside the shed with a look that was so forcefully confident that Remus knew he was everything but. His father glanced at the sky again, a nervous tic that had started sometime after Remus was bitten and increased as the month wore on, but it was still quite certainly midday and the moon was nowhere to be seen.

"Alright," Remus said, his new favorite word for when he did not know what else to say. He stood there, a little awkwardly in the shadow of his uncertain, kind father, and stared at the shed that would become his home, once a month, for as long as they lived in that house.

There were only two windows, both small and high, where the moonlight would find him and hold him captive, but where his small height as a child or a wolf – it was true, it was true, tonight he would become a wolf, it was going to happen – would not see out and be tempted by any distractions.

They had received a pamphlet from St. Mungo's when they left, cautionary words for new werewolves (it made it sound like a life decision he had made – an owner of a car, a house, a child, a disease that would rip him apart monthly and not let him properly mend ever, ever again) and those that would care for them. They had offered facilities and advice but there was little they could do, truly, and Remus' father had looked at them distrustfully and their suggestions.

"What'd they do to him away from ours eyes?" he had wondered to Remus' mother when he thought Remus was not listening, but when he was, just like before with Aunt Anne's death, just on the other side of the door. He was not a child prone to eavesdropping but sometimes the curiosity was too much, sometimes he just needed to know what was being said about him so he would know how to act when they next saw him, to encourage or deny their words and to put them at ease, as they likely never would be again after... that night.

"Surely they wouldn't—" His mother started, changing it mid-sentence to, "You don't think--?"

Silence for a few of Remus' muffled, quickened breaths, and then his father said simply, "I don't trust them. What I've heard some of them say – about half-bloods and Dark Creatures and what should be done about them, as if they're some bloody _pest—_" His voice twisted into a sneer, anger and indignation and helplessness and Remus held his breath until the count of three to try to slow his racing thoughts.

"Well – but, St. Mungo's, they're a hospital, surely—?"

"They're as connected to the Ministry as anything is these days," Remus' father said gravely and that was apparently all that needed to be said because they both fell silent. Remus hovered uncertainly, not wanting to be caught but not willing yet to step away, but it seemed they were finished speaking. He was only just stepping back when he heard his father say lowly, "We'll have to find him a place."

His mother was silent and Remus felt himself go as still as a deer stalked by a predator staring through the trees. After a long, uncomfortable moment, his father said decisively, "I'll build it for him."

Remus did not wait that time to hear if anything more was said; he'd retreated to his room to huddle under his blankets and wish distantly, stupidly, that he had his favorite jumper there, or maybe Jumper, to hug or cradle or just feel familiar and human around.

But in the weeks that had followed that moment, Remus had managed to not think about his father's words until he had been seen gathering wood and hammer, nails and glass. He was not a craftsman, but he needed the supplies to properly magic the space together, and even after it was assembled like so many building blocks from the swish of a wand, he still walked around and around it, scrutinizing and staring, strengthening a joint here and actually using Muggle wood glue or hammering in nails there. The glass was covered with metal bars that made it into its own tiny prison, but Remus could not blame his father for the precaution and actually felt relief.

He would not escape.

He would not eat a dog.

He would not bite someone else.

The door and walls were covered with strengthening spells and anti-breaking spells, and there was a giant padlock and wooden bar across the outside to not let Remus out. Inside, there was another lock for Remus in case he ever needed to lock himself in and an empty room with a mismatched set of lumpy, sad-looking cushions in the corner that Remus' mother had found secondhand the last time she went shopping.

His father had wanted to put a screen in the corner, for privacy in case Remus wanted to take his clothes off before the Change could happen, but his mother was afraid that he would somehow knock it over onto himself, or would hide behind it and do something desperate like attempt to kill himself out of despair. So it was a small, empty room, with the sad cushions and the barred windows, halfway between the woods and the house, standing alone and forlorn and ready for the makings of nightmares.

That first full moon, Remus went into the shed far earlier than he needed to, when the sun was still hovering on the horizon and the moon would not be out in full for another few hours. But he was paranoid and he was afraid and he didn't dare hesitate too long for fear that it would be too late and he would do something unforgivable – like bite his mother or father and curse them to the same existence he had stumbled onto himself.

His mother hovered just outside the door as Remus moved to shut it, her hands moving in fretful, fidgeting patterns, her eyes wide and scared in the failing light.

"We'll be right out here," she said for the tenth time in the last twenty minutes. "So if anything goes wrong—"

But there was no proper way to finish that sentence; they all knew it, even Remus as young as he was. So he just smiled his calm smile, the one that had gained so much maturity and sadness in the last few weeks, and nodded his head slightly.

"Alright," he said, as he had nine times before, and she stared at him with tears that gathered and shone but did not fall.

"Alright," she whispered back this time, holding her opposite elbows as her arms were crossed at her stomach, and when she smiled there was a bit more faith in it than before. "We'll be waiting," she said this time instead, barely a hint of voice to go with the breath of the words.

His father smiled at him as comfortingly as he could manage, said, "We believe in you, son," and shut the door with a regretful firmness. Remus stared at the large wooden door as the thump and rattle on the other side signaled that the padlock and bar were being adjusted, and forced himself to take slow, deep breaths.

He took a few steps back, paced the length of the room, and felt incredibly uncomfortable and aware of the walls, the ceiling, the bars on the windows. He felt like an animal, caged and controlled, and he already knew this was going to be terrible tonight, it was, because even as human – he was human, he was human, he wasn't anything else, he wasn't a wolf _a werewolf_ a_ were_wolf – he felt stifled and claustrophobic and just this side of lashing out or yelling or breaking.

The hours between sunset and moonrise were the longest in his life so far, even counting lying in the hospital bed at St. Mungo's as he struggled to understand where he was, find a balance between confused half-dreams and the reality of a crying mother at his side and father too afraid to look at his face, and everyone talking around him in whispers of _that poor child _and _his long life ahead _and _how much suffering he will have to deal with now._

He found himself pacing, pacing, trying to sit down and rest but inevitably standing to pace again. Animal, animal, he was a caged animal, and he tried to ignore how _wrong _it all felt with his parents' anxious faces peering in the windows now and then, and the very distant, muffled sounds of their voices outside.

When the full moon rose, despite all the waiting and the dragging hours before, it felt so sudden and wrenching that Remus felt split open down the middle, vulnerable and violated and so very lacking any control.

He knew the transformation would not be good – had read in the pamphlet and overheard whispers of pain and disorientation and lack of conscious control – but when it came, it was nothing like he had imagined, even in his darkest wanderings of the mind.

It was at once the feeling of imploding and exploding. Something dark and disgusting rose from the pit of his soul, clawing its way out from the center of his very essence to latch onto his spine, his bones, his skeleton and nerves and veins and capillaries – it permeated everything within him with a foul, foreboding odor, like the scent of death before the corpse, or the sight of vultures before the decay.

He screamed, then, before it even hurt, before anything had even happened, because he could feel it within him, this _thing, _this disgusting _Thing _that had never been there before, was so alien to his body that he felt permeated with filth, that he wanted to throw up and throw up until all his organs were scattered on the floor and he could stomp the darkness out of them.

Right after that he had real reason to scream and it switched from _terror _to _torture _and he was not even aware of his mother crying out in sympathy and turning away, or his father staring stonily through the windows, as if intent to etch this into his memory for the rest of his life.

His skeleton was shifting within his skin, bones morphing and dragging his muscles with them, organs sliding and grating and rearranging, skin splitting like invisible knives were slicing him open to give way to the different body waiting to claw its way out from beneath. The moonlight was burning into him in a terribly pleasurable way, bathing his Change in perfect relief so that when he fell to his hands and knees and he ripped at his stomach and chest with nails that were lengthening to claws, it was vivid and real and something his father would never forget.

As Remus felt his body completely rearranging itself, he tried desperately to control it. Clawed at his skin, gripped his arms so tightly that he left bruises in the muscles that ached for days, even found himself ripping violently with his lengthening teeth at his forearms as if he could wrench the skin off before it could betray him. Fur erupted along his body, terrifying him somehow even more than the cracking and changing bones did, and it was with a terrified scream that turned into a howl that Remus lost all conscious thought of the night.

Later in the morning he woke weakened with a throat that hurt and a tongue that tasted disturbingly of metallic blood, and his body throbbing with cuts and gouges all over. When he opened his eyes the light seemed too much, even with the curtains drawn and door closed, and he did not even realize he was going to cry until he was sobbing so hard he could not breathe, and he curled on his side and clutched desperately at his body as if to reassure himself, _I am human, this is my body, I have two arms and two legs and I am not covered in fur, I am not a wolf, I am not a wolf, I am human, I am human, I am me... _

His father was there in an instant, hands trembling as they smoothed back his hair from his forehead, voice low and soothing with the words that made even less sense after the hell Remus had just gone through than they ever had before, but it worked. Remus knew he was not alone, he was still loved... he was still human.

As the months passed, they tried other tricks. They placed silencing spells all around the shed to keep the howls and screams from echoing ominously around their house and, Remus suspected, to keep his mother's sanity.

Once, Remus' father tried placing hunks of meat in the room, hoping it would distract the wolf from clawing at himself and everything else – breaking nails and gouging out skin and muscle and howling like he was caught in the very deepest depths of hell and sometimes, sometimes, even enjoyed it. But the fresh blood only excited the wolf further and when Remus took a full week to recover from the shock of the results, when Remus' father had almost burst into the room to try to protect him and stopped himself only with the very strongest surges of willpower, they knew never to try anything like that again.

Remus' mother could not handle to stand anywhere near the shed on full moon nights anymore and avoided the shed like the plague even during the rest of the month. She had a haunted look every time she glanced at it and Remus found himself wondering over time what they saw when they watched him, for he knew only what it felt from his end – terror and agony and, worst of all by far, the feeling of elation and _freedom _from the bestial Thinginside that grinned its lolling, bloody sneer to the world once a month, without fail, in the cruelly beautiful light of the full moon.


End file.
